Wycliffe and Tyndale

[Still in my addiction to audiobooks phase!]

After finishing the unabridged 'Dune' by Frank Herbert (read by Scott Brick), which was a completely absorbing 22 hours on another world (and even more marvellous to listen to than read), I'm now listening to Melvyn Bragg's Adventure of English. It's a truly fascinating story for anyone interested in history and language and Robert Powell's narration makes the words and language come alive. From Beowulf to Chaucer to Elizabeth I... (that's about as far as I've got!)

I'm currently deep in the Middle Ages; being inspired and moved by the stories of Wycliffe and Tyndale and their respective Bible translations. Tyndale sounds like a fantastic character particularly. The story of him agreeing to sell a whole print run of 6000 copies to the Bishop of London - which were then burnt - and then using the proceeds to finance a new version - pure brilliance! And Melvyn Bragg rightly raves about the lyricism and brilliance of his translation. He introduced a huge number of new words and phrases into English (see the Wikipedia article for examples). The King James Version stuck to his phrasing and vocabulary in most cases and lots is still familiar today in modern translations.

Tyndale was a preacher and his version was a preacher's Bible, lyrical and memorable. Bragg comments that English Bibles today still share this legacy from Tyndale of being designed to be read aloud and understood by all.

"I defy the pope, and all his laws... If God spared him life, ere many years he would cause a boy that driveth the plough to know more of the Scripture than he did."

Bragg has some great quotes from Tyndale and others, which sadly I cannot share because I don't have the text in front of me, but I highly recommend reading the book - or even getting the audiobook (I have a subscription at Audible - by far the cheapest way!)

Footprints in the sand

A conversation with my dad pointed me in the direction of these very cool prehistoric footprints at Formby Point, near Liverpool.

These footprints are thought to have been created about 4000 years ago, by humans and animals walking in the mud and sand along the shore. No one's sure how, but huge numbers of footprints in this intertidal region were not washed away but left exposed, perhaps due to a lowering of sea level. They were later covered with a layer of sand, which over time turned into sedimentary rock.

In more recent years the sea has eroded these concealing layers to reveal the footprints beneath. They were first discovered almost 20 years ago and archeologists have raced to capture the prints in photographs and plaster casts because once exposed the prints are quickly destroyed by the sea. Amazing to think that such an interesting archaelogical find is being lost so quickly, and by the very process that was interrupted so long ago.

They have even discovered prints belonging to the auroch - a giant prehistoric ox that became extinct in Britain during the Bronze Age. The auroch stood 6 feet high and was 11 feet long!

I especially liked this foot detail of a young adult male, showing the pointed toe outlines of long uncut toenails! (from the Intertidal archeology page).

Mitochondria and Eve

National Geographic have launched the Genographic Project in an effort to trace the journey of human beings across the globe.

Tracing DNA history is an area of science in which I have been interested for a while, although biology is certainly not my specialism. Here's a short explanation, which will hopefully give a sense of why cellular biology plays such an interesting and important part in tracing human history.

Inside every cell of your body are tiny structures called organelles (the nucleus is the most well known). One of these organelles is the mitochondrion. Mitochondria are often called 'cellular power plants' for their role in providing energy to the cell.

However, these little structures are important for another reason. Mitochondria are unusual because they have their own DNA, their own genetic code, and it is generally accepted that their history began as a separate organism. If this is the case, then these creatures have a symbiotic relationship with humans. But this is just part of the story, although an intriguing part!

Mitochondria reproduce like bacteria, by division ('binary fission'), essentially making them clones. They reproduce according to the energy needs of the cell and therefore their life cycle is not related to the life cycle of the cell. During human reproduction an egg nucleus and a sperm nucleus are joined and their genetic material combined to form a new genetic code. However, the mitochondria in the sperm cell are generally destroyed at fertilisation and so the embryo begins its life with mitochondria from the mother only.

So that's the background, here's where it gets interesting... As mitochondria are basically clones, very little genetic difference is seen between successive human generations, although mutation over time will introduce markers that enable a particular 'gene tree' to be identified. This makes them particularly useful in population genetic studies, such as the National Geographic project mentioned above, because they allow scientists to use these markers to trace the movements of populations across many generations and recognise links between widely dispersed peoples (e.g. between Koreans and Native Americans - see the Atlas of the Human Journey).

Comparing differences between mtDNA and working backwards to find the point at which it diverged also uncovers "the woman who is the most recent common matrilineal ancestor of all living humans", famously named Mitochondrial Eve. The age of 'Eve' can be approximated using the 'gene clock' technique, a way of tracing the point when two population groups have diverged by counting the number of genetic differences between their DNA sequences. She is thought to have lived in Africa about 150,000 years ago. While there will have been other women living at the same time, many of whom will have descendants today, only Mitochondrial Eve produced an unbroken line of daughters that persists to this day.

Controversial for some, perhaps, but certainly interesting - don't you agree?

Christmas Eve Adventures

This should have been posted before the previous entry, but never mind!

Christmas Eve was a day out in London for the Millers. Mum had booked us a tour of the Thames Tunnel by tube which made for an unusual start to Christmas Eve!

The Curator of the Brunel Museum took our tour...a small man with a voice loud enough to speak over a tube train, but with a irritatingly small amount of stock phrases, uttered with huge enthusiasm but nevertheless starting to grate after the 20th or 30th time: "Welcome To The The 8th Wonder of the World!" "This is the Oldest Tunnel of the Oldest Stretch of Line in the Oldest Underground Railway System in the World!" "It's the First Tunnel Under a River Anywhere in the World!" etc etc.

The story of the Thames Tunnel is actually an amazing story, full of engineering triumphs and disasters, 19th Century politics and public-relations genius, such as the banquet in the half-finished tunnel. It is Isambard Kingdom Brunel's first public engineering project and paved the way for the London Underground. The tunnel has had a colourful history - including some time as "The First Underground Shopping Arcade!" but it's now part of the East London Line - thus the 'tour by tube'.

From our underground adventures we continued South, getting as far as Decathlon - the sports superstore at Surrey Quays. It wouldn't be Christmas Eve without some last minute shopping! As we left, the Sun was setting dramatically above the high rises...




Early evening found us on the South Bank and admiring the London Eye, as ever! The Golden Jubilee Bridges at the Hungerford are also a favourite.


We crossed the River and made our way up to Trafalgar Square for the Christmas Carol Service at St Martin-in-the-Fields. It had a slightly surreal quality to it, being recorded by BBC Radio for their Christmas morning service on Radio 4, but nevertheless some great carols and an excellent excuse for being out and about in a dark and festive London!

One Solitary Life

While we're on the theme, here's another old favourite..

He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another obscure village, where He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty. Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher.
He never had a family or owned a home. He never set foot inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place He was born. He never wrote a book, or held an office. He did none of the things that usually accompany greatness.
While He was still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against Him. His friends deserted Him. He was turned over to His enemies, and went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between two thieves. While He was dying, His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had --- His coat.
When He was dead, He was taken down and laid in a borrowed grave.
Nineteen centuries have come and gone, and today He is the central figure for much of the human race. All the armies that ever marched, and all the navies that ever sailed, and all the parliaments that ever sat, and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as this one solitary life.

The original version of this is by Dr. James Allan Francis. It can be found in his book called "The Real Jesus and Other Sermons", published by "The Judson Press" (Phil.) in 1926.